No matter how the crisis engulfing Ukraine plays out, it has already produced one result that is probably more important than anything else: it has destroyed the myth of Russian strength.

Over the past decade, Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to convince both the world and his fellow countrymen that Russia is a resurgent great power. He was aided by an unmatched talent for tactical maneuvering, a relatively stable oil price, and a West bogged down by distracting wars and economic woes.

Putin pulled off a war in Georgia, created a Eurasian customs area to rival the European Union, duped the West on Syria, cunningly played former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and then torpedoed Ukraine’s signing of a trade and association agreement with the EU. He did all this with resolve, shamelessness, and chutzpah.

And so the world started to believe that there was substance behind the posturing. European and U.S. nostalgists were only too eager to embark on a new Ostpolitik, based on the assumption that Russia was too powerful to deal with through regular diplomacy. Forbes magazine named Vladimir Putin the most powerful man in the world in 2013. And the Economist, as recently as February 1, announced “the triumph of Vladimir Putin.”

The few voices that tried to remind observers that none of this had much substance were not listened to. Audiences remained skeptical when they were told that Russia was actually a power in decline, equipped with the capacity to wreak havoc but not the ability to shape the world. Some liked to hear it because they disliked Russia, but almost all in the West continued to assign almost limitless power to the Kremlin.

But now Russia’s bluff has been called. It is not yet clear what lasting impact the sudden downfall of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych will have in the region. But what is already clear is that the myth of Russian power has been thoroughly shredded. The heroic people of Ukraine’s Euromaidan protest movement, helped unwittingly by the EU and some eleventh-hour U.S. diplomacy, revealed Moscow’s real power status.

In summer 2013, a bureaucratic EU project, backed up with little money and no hard power and executed in a technocratic, apolitical way, was enough to instill mortal fear in the Kremlin. Negotiations on an association and free-trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine had entered their final phase and were scheduled to culminate in a big summit in Vilnius in November.

Dutifully, Putin mustered the Kremlin’s classic arsenal. To set a precedent, he bullied a smaller country, Armenia, into joining his bogus alternative Eurasian project. He then applied the right mix of threats and embraces to convince Yanukovych that his political survival was best guaranteed by staying with Russia instead of joining the West.

Western observers have long interpreted such moves as the outflow of a Russian grand strategy to reestablish a neo-Soviet empire. Those closer to the Kremlin have sought to debunk such imperial talk as nonsense, but they have been largely ignored. It was much more convenient to nurture old Cold War stereotypes than to see through the Kremlin’s scheme. In reality, Putin’s strong-arming of weak neighbors was and is symptomatic of a desperate fight for the survival of a rotten and hollowed-out political system.

In the months after November’s failed Vilnius summit, when Ukrainians flocked to Kiev’s Independence Square to demand a Western future, the weakness of Putin’s system became apparent. He showed an utter disregard for the people he aspires to rule over.

Russia’s human rights violations, corruption, and orchestrated pseudodemocracy are bad enough. But in Ukraine, Russia failed to understand that people are citizens, that they have autonomous ideas about the future they want—and that this future is not just about getting rich but also about having a say. There is no greater misreading of the Ukrainian protests, and no greater condescension, than to dismiss the situation as the product of Western conspiracies and terrorist agitation.

As a result, Putin lost Ukraine in the endgame on February 21. In the multiparty negotiations in Kiev that evening, Moscow agreed to early presidential elections in Ukraine, only to see the situation unravel within hours. Yanukovych had essentially forfeited power. It became clear that once the people had lost their fear, neither Yanukovych nor Putin had any substance left to offer. The spell had been broken, and the myth of universal power was gone.

As soon as apparatchiks, security forces, and puppet politicians sensed that the system would not hold together, they abandoned ship. The change of power happened in less than forty-eight hours, and peacefully.

Putin’s great strength lies in his tactical skill and ruthlessness. The West has long mistaken that for strategic depth and statesmanship. But Putin’s real power, as German journalist Clemens Wergin has noted, is relative: it depends on how much counterpower the West is willing to apply. With its economy, society, and military in decay, Russia’s strength does not have much of an original source of its own.

The EU’s half-baked neighborhood policy contained enough ideas firepower to inspire Ukrainians to call Russia’s bluff. They put the West to shame. No matter how much Europeans love the narcissistic tale of their own decline, liberal democracy remains an enduring attraction and a formidable foreign policy tool. Much that happens in Ukraine will now depend on the West’s ability to learn that all-important lesson from this astonishing episode.

Excellent column. Well done, Mr. Techau. You quite correctly point out that Putin has been able to score his successes only because of the indecisiveness, gullibility and spinelessness of the west's leadership, most notably Barack Obama, around whom Putin has run rings for the past five years. When the west actually manages to push back, as the foreign ministers of the EU did in Kiev last week, the myth of "resurgent Russian power" is laid bare. The naked fact is that what Putin is offering isn't selling in places like Ukraine. The Ukrainian people have had their fill of life under corrupt, autocratic rulers who derive their power from fear and intimidation.

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eazent

February 27, 20143:47 pm

yer right, they prefer neo-nazi's instead....Garbage column. I'm not pro-Russian by any means but at least the Eurasian part of the world are developing. Becoming a part of the EU (west) is a death sentence. Why don't you ask Greece, Southern Italy, Bulgaria etc....what they think of the EU. Then realize this coup' de tat of an elected government has been staged, and aided by the West, namely the British empire. Have you not heard Nuland's comments ffs?

Whether the tsars or the Soviet leaders, the Russians cannot comprehend that Ukraine and Ukrainians are not Russia and Russians. Ukrainians kept telling the world, but no one listened. Invasions, persecution, destruction -- these have only gone one way. The reason there is so much Russian in the east of Ukraine is that they came in to work during early Soviet times, and then Russians settled the empty villages after millions starved in the Holodomor genocide of 1932-33. Just let Ukraine be Ukraine -- give the people a chance.

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Franck H.

February 25, 20141:27 pm

Dear Jan Techau, you yourself write "Some liked to hear it [that Russia is actually in decline] because they disliked Russia". Judging not only from this blog entry, this does very well apply to you (however much I appreciate your analyses otherwise). I am far from being the pundit you are, but it appears to me that Russiaphobia has somewhat blurred your usually sharp view. It is obvious that the Kremlin hasn't been able to orchestrate developments in Ukraine (nor do I contest that Russia faces enormous challenges). Yet, the Kremlin is the only foreign power knowing how/daring to play the Ukrainian oligarchic elite to its advantage. Granted, this may be a tactical tool. And still, even under the new conditions it should prove quite effective. What is more, it is closely intertwined through the oligarchs' businesses with natural gas or financial bailout (no donour community will be able to compete with 15 bn USD; even if the new Ukraine leadership finds other funds in the short-term, they can turn to Moscow any time later) - strategic assets in the hands of Russia - for years to come.

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Big Z

February 26, 20143:32 am

Fortunately, this has nothing to do with the Cold War. And in the end f...ing EU has demonstrated that its soft power yielded results, sleepy neighbourhood policy and Vilnius summit turned out to be a success.

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Aaron

February 26, 20146:50 am

I think you are dismissing Russia too quickly. Putin's play for Ukraine has been steady across governments and internal Ukrainian politics are far more convoluted than a simple struggle between pro-EU and pro-Russian factions.
In addition, anytime an election is due to be held the outcome can be influenced by external powers. It has been apparent for a couple of months now that Yanukovych spent much of his political capital and had lost much of his influence of parliament and his people. With new elections Putin has another opportunity to purchase favors.
While Russia may not be the superpower it once was, they aren't a paper tiger. I believe that you are underestimating Russia's capabilities.

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Michael J

February 26, 20148:16 am

One correction to this article, which is generally convincing. When "The Economist" headlined "the triumph of Vladimir Putin", it was actually meant ironically, because the burden of the article is that Putin achieved his personal prominence and domination at the cost of reducing his country to an uncompetitive basket case with an unreformed economy and totally dependent upon the vagaries of the world oil price.

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random_geezer

February 26, 20142:11 pm

You gave a misleading and rather self-serving quote from the Economist. Reading further than the headline: "Yet the revival of Mr Putin’s fortunes is not quite as impressive as it seems. It is not just that Russia’s political model has little appeal to others. Its resurgence is limited by a corrupt, state-directed economy that seems to be condemned to stagnation." I am hardly a foreign policy wonk, but I recognized the myth of Russian power and its inability to be anything more than a spoiler and a local two-bit bully long ago.

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Christopher Carlson

February 26, 20145:20 pm

From documents taken from Viktor Yanukovych's residence show that he requested military intervention from Moscow and had plans to use 22,000 Ukrainian police or soldiers to crack down on the revolution. Both of those plans were shot down by Putin. My question for the author is why? Does Putin not have the political will, ability, or support to engage in such a venture? Or, was Putin not willing to do so because of Western pressure?

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Carl

March 24, 201410:58 pm

...And a month after this article was written Russia outmaneuvered the West in one quick decisive move and has endowed itself with 10,000 square miles of former Ukrainian territory ripe with oil and gas. The Russian resolve stunned everybody and all the West can do is to bark about toothless sanctions and draw ever receding lines in the sand. For that little extra salt in the wounds, Russia forged closer ties with the other BRICs and with South America in particular.
Quite amazingly, the attempts to isolate Russia has only led to a strengthening of the prospect of a future truly multipolar world.
I guess this goes to show just how awfully off every "informed" attempt at nailing down Russian ambitions and influence has been for the past decade and a half.

Ha...don't kid yourself. Now Russia is bolstering their military with what money they have left. You are naive if you believe for a second Russia is not cause for great concern. Depending on how things go in the near future we may well be looking at another World War. We should respect Russia as a formidable adversary, and NATO should posture their militaries accordingly. DON'T BE A FOOL!

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